Insert a few days of class... nothing too important, you know. Just the usual note-taking, course-finding, homeworking-doing (sort of) week. A weekend that was (thankfully) rather uneventful gave me time to catch up on a lot of different things, especially Hendrix oriented things. I completed my application to be an Peer Leader and sent that off. Peer Leaders get to lead an Orientation trip for the new students at Hendrix.
By the way, I got it! YAY Orientation!
I also spent a good bit of time working on my Odyssey proposal and the funding request attached to it.
I am planning on going to Québec City for its 400th birthday and to do some research there in the name of all things francophone. Of course, my proposal puts it slightly more eloquently. The title is Je me Souviens: a Look at the Identity Shaped by 400 Years of Francophonie
Here's an excerpt:
' "Je me souviens," meaning I remember, is the official motto of the province of Québec and has come to represent the idea of never forgetting its French roots. In 1608, Samuel Champlain completed a historic voyage from Honfleur, France to what was then New France. He founded the city of Québec there on July 3rd, making it one of North America's oldest cities. This year Québec is commemorating the 400th anniversary of its founding in a year long celebration called le 400ème anniversaire de Québec—essentially an invitation to the francophone community to come to Québec and pay tribute to its history.
As a French major, I am very interested in these francophone centered events; however a large part of my desire to attend stems from my personal history surrounding the French language. I hail from south Louisiana, where Cajun French is fighting a daily battle to stay alive. My entire family is of French descent—my great great grandparents spoke no English. However, because of a series of English-only laws passed in Louisiana, coupled with stereotypes against the Cajun people, English was forced upon its francophone inhabitants. As a result, many families stopped speaking French and in losing the language, they lost a huge part of their heritage. I am the first member of family in three generations to speak French and I feel that I am reclaiming a part of my culture that has been kept from me. I plan to work with francophone relations, especially within Louisiana, in hopes to preserve that heritage that is so linked to the language.
The province of Québec represents a francophone community that has succeeded in doing just that. In the face of a dominant anglophone society, it has maintained its French roots. The celebration of its 400th birthday is also a celebration of its francophone culture. I plan to be in Québec City July 1st through the 10th in order to witness this incredible celebration of francophone culture which will take the form of expositions, exhibits, plays, official ceremonies and more. '
Some cool events that I really hope to participate in range from conferences, to The Parliamentary Assembly of Francophone Communities to fireworks (which for me is a HUGE deal) to a group of boats that are going to recreate Mr. Samuel de Champlain's voyage from France to Québec. If everything works as planned, I would have the opportunity to see them when they leave and when they arrive.
I finished all of this Odyssey paperwork while Jane was here and am now in the waiting process… which will not be over until late March. Good thing that I have had plenty to keep me busy in the meantime. For example, Jane came and visited me!
For those of you who unfortunately do not know this lovely girl, pictured here after a tour of the Louvre
she was my roommate freshman year and will be filling that role again next year. She is currently in Màlaga, Spain doing her own year abroad in Spanish. We had originally thought that with me studying in France and her in Spain that we would probably be decently close. Ha! Get a map out and check where Màlaga is compared to Lille. About as far away as the two could possibly be without changing countries. Oh well, that's what visiting is for!
Jane made it safely from Paris to Lille with a few pieces of key information and a small list of vocabulary words. She came and I showed her around Lille. Now, I am completely satisfied with Lille as a city, and there really is a lot to do, but for a sightseeing sort of city, well, there isn't much. But we went to see it all anyway. Jane, having just finished exams, took this opportunity to relax. Being reunited as roomies once again was wonderful. She even made me chicken salad!
Friday, while I was still in class, Jane made her way on over to Paris. She ended up on the same train as David (my Irish buddy) who was going to meet several of his siblings in that large city. Jane split off from them for a while, but then apparently ran into them later and ended up wandering around with them. Which was handy considering she doesn't know any French. I met up with them in the Louvre later that evening.
and we all went to eat at a Cajun restaurant. Yes, that's right. A fellow Louisianian had told me about it before hand and we thought that we'd try it out. It was good. Slightly expensive, but decently authentic.
Although the portions were terribly tiny. I had one catfish filet. So saddening.
Jane had some gumbo, there was jambalaya as well.
And pecan pie for dessert! I must say, however, that the best part of the evening was when Ronan (David's brother) picked up the check, refusing to accept payment from anyone. He made Jane and I promise to visit him and make Jambalaya and Guacamole. Separately, obviously. We whole-heartedly agreed. Jane and I took a different metro direction to pick up her luggage at the train station, which was an adventure in itself. That place is hard to navigate…in general. Now imagine it emptying out as it nears 11 pm with a Jane who does not remember where the luggage storage thing is. So I end up asking a janitor if he could help us out. He pointed us in the right direction with a comment about it probably being closed. We rush across the station, find the place as the guy has the keys in his hands, making for the gate. I happen to be on the phone with Bobbie (another Sainte Anne kid who was putting us up for the night), struggling to understand directions to get to her dorm. So I sort of shove Jane toward the man locking up and hope for the best. She makes it in with some miming skills and some English begging. I finish with Bobbie before she gets out and walk over, where the man starts joking around that the deal was only that she could get her bag and that he was going to keep her in there all night. I played along, explaining how he couldn't do that; she had come to visit me all the way from Spain! It was a lovely exchange, but Jane missed most of it because of the whole French thing. Long story short, (or not so much. Dear lord, if I am longwinded) we got the luggage, walked into to Bobbie's dorm like we owned the place, since loaning people a spot on your floor is illegal there. A bit of catching up on the part of me and Bobbie, as the last time we saw each other was for a very brief moment freshman year in New Orleans, and then it was bed time.
Early the next morning, Jane and I went to another train station and set off toward Caen.
We sat in one of those cars that you see in the movies, four seats facing four other seats, your own proper little space. We thought it would be really cool. Turns out it is just pretty awkward. The French, to offer an incredibly generalized and sweeping statement, like to stare. I have only recently begun to get used to a pair of eyes following me from a window, or fixed on me in the metro. That's just how they are… so sitting across from four random people who aren't talking for a few hours is odd. I slept most of the time anyway, but Jane was subject to the brunt of the eyeballing.
Upon our arrival in Caen, we called up David (to be pronounced in the Spanish fashion, because he is indeed, Spanish). David was an international student at Hendrix last year, who is now studying in Caen and had graciously offered to loan us his bed for the night.
He brought us around Caen, showing the few sights left in the town. During World War II, the majority of Caen was destroyed. And I mean completely. We did get to see the beautiful church and a castle (as seen behind David) that was built by William the Conqueror. Or William the Bastard. It all depends on whether or not he built before the name was changed.
This is us, standing on the castle.
Jane and I continued on to the Memorial of Caen, which is a memorial and museum. It was a really good preparatory/ refresher course for me as far as the historical end of things.
The American memorial
Every state gave a stone.
The memorial was also a peace museum:
This is all on a Saturday. We were actually supposed to be on the Normandy beaches on Saturday, but we were waiting on some other Hendrix kids who are also abroad (two in Graz, Austria and one in an unpronounceable, unspellable place in the Netherlands). They didn't get in until late Saturday night, so the plans were shifted to Sunday. We woke up at a decent time, got yummy French pastries at market, and caught a fifteen minute train to Bayeux, which is the town that is the closest to the beaches. Once again, because of communication breakdowns (literally—the phones stopped working), Jane and I were there a bit before the others. We walked around this ADORABLE town, just taking in the prettiness of it.
We then attempt to go to the tourism office. Which is closed. Because it is Sunday. Right about this time I remember that Sunday in France means market. The end. Nothing else is open or going on. Including the buses from Bayeux to the beaches.
Conveniently, one other thing was open in Bayeux… the museum that houses the Bayeux Tapestry!!!! This tapestry has been the subject of little culture squares in French books for ages. It depicts the invasion of England by the Normans under good old William the Conqueror. As we find the museum, it is closing up, but the giftshop is still open. We run in and I explain our situation to the ladies behind the counter. They confirm that sinking suspicion that there are no buses because of the whole Sunday thing. They gave us our options: a taxi or hitchhiking. (I think I might have mentioned somewhere beforehand that in France hitchhiking is a valid form of transportation. The fact that two giftshop ladies suggested it proves my point.) As we were going to be in a group of five, we had to essentially rule out hitchhiking, so we got the numbers of some taxi companies. I swallowed hard and prepared myself for the phone calling. Understanding people over the phone is hard. Understanding French over the phone is horrendous. Luckily enough, the first guy that we called realized I was foreign and made that conscious effort to slow down his speech and over enunciate. He also explained to me what would be the cheapest option. After hanging up with him I informed Jane that I wasn't going to be calling any more numbers because I liked that guy.
The others showed up, we and we presented them with the taxi solution. We ran in for a quick visit of the tapestry upon the opening of the museum (!!!!!) and then hopped in a taxi. As the French speaking kid, I am up front with the taxi man, trying to balance between when I should be making small talk and when I should be interacting with everyone else. We are dropped off at the American cemetery.
wall of names of people they never found:
I have been lucky and blessed enough to see a lot of things in my life. This was definitely one of the most intense of these things. The memorial was appropriate and well done. I even found this:
The cemetery was surprisingly large.
You see pictures of it, but what you don't see is that it stretches on like that in every direction, that there are more plots exactly like the one you are looking at.
Nearly 10,000 Americans died there.
Going out on to the beaches, it is hard to imagine those same 10,000 coming ashore, seeing what we were seeing.
The landscape has reclaimed the area… German bunkers are a bit overrun with plants, but still a maintain a dominant presence. The bunkers are open areas, anyone can go in and out as they see fit. This is the view from one of the bunkers we found. It is hard to hold the two ideas of seeing a lovely landscape and then realizing what good shooting position this particular bunker was in.
The views of the beach were so beautiful, so contradictory to the history that is embedded there. You think we'd learn.
After a quiet, contemplative ride back to Bayeux (which did include the first oreo I have had since coming to France) we caught the next train out to Caen, grabbed our stuff and were back in Paris for that evening. We crashed, exhausted, at Bobbie's. The next morning we got up early again and I took Jane out into Paris! Well, it's not actually like I know Paris well… but I have a general idea of what things are pretty nifty. And plus, I speak French. That helps a bit. We went straight for the Eiffel Tower where, taking a page from Amanda's book, I looked at Jane's face instead of the tower. Well worth it—the looks of awe are indeed priceless.
We then went to Sacre Coeur
before Jane had to catch her train and looked out over a very hazy Paris.
That is, after hauling her suitcase up ALL of those stairs and then back down. And that was the end of Jane's visit. I made sure that she was safely on the metro going in the right direction and then I went back to Sacre Coeur and just sat down to read my book for a while. The book, Le Parfum, was my Christmas present from Matthias and I am slowly but surely making my way through it. I proceeded to wander around Paris a bit and finally saw le Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum that is featured in every French book imaginable. I guess they feel the need to break up all these photos of palaces and monuments with a some sort of oddity.
That evening I was invited to Erin's apartment for supper. Erin is this pretty nifty kid that I met in Canada, even though she is from Louisiana and goes to UL as a French major and is studying in Paris thanks to CODOFIL. We nerded out about everything Cajun for a bit, to the great amusement of the Canadian who had joined us. I left with a full tummy and a new book to borrow for the trip. I also managed to leave my phone their, which meant extra early getting up for me the next morning. The early rising gave me the chance to see Le Café Deux Moulins where Amélie was filmed. And I went to a morning mass in Notre Dame, which was very serene without tourists taking pictures every two seconds.
It put me in a very calm mood as I metro-ed to the train station to meet Matthias, catch a train to Beauvais and go to BARCELONA.
I am so close to being caught up, I can smell it. So close.
53 °F
37 °F
